Bugbee. Some
of the village folks, who were in the habit, so common with old people, of
thinking that the race is continually degenerating, I have heard express
the opinion that Helen was never so handsome as her mother had been. But I
have seen a portrait of Miss Amelia Bugbee, for which she sat just before
her wedding, and which, I am assured, was, in the time of it, called a
wonderful likeness; I also knew Miss Helen Talcott Bugbee when she was not
far from her mother's age at the time the picture was taken; and though
Miss Amelia must have been a very sweet young lady, of extraordinarily good
looks, I used to think, for my part, that Helen was much handsomer than the
portrait; although people of a different taste might very properly have
preferred the less haughty expression of the face depicted on the canvas.
It was not strange that Helen was petted and humored as much as was well
for her. But her disposition being naturally docile and amiable, she was
not to be easily spoiled. Be that as it may, however, when she had grown to
be a woman, there were, I dare say, no less than fifty young men who knew
her well, any one of whom would have jumped at the chance to get her for a
wife, and made but little account of the risk of her turning out a shrew.
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